c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ The death in early May of A. Roy Eckardt, a professor of religion at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, at age 79 has robbed the world of an enormously gifted spiritual pioneer who permanently changed the way Christians relate to Jews and Judaism.

Eckardt, a United Methodist, graduated from Brooklyn College and did graduate work at Yale Divinity School, Columbia University, and Union Theological Seminary.

As a young man, he grew up in the dynamic social gospel tradition of Protestantism, which urged Christians to rid society of its old prejudices and stereotypes. The twin evils of anti-Semitism and racism were especially hateful to Eckardt.

As a graduate student, he encountered two of this century’s giants of Christian theology, brothers Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, who profoundly influenced Eckardt’s thinking. Indeed, throughout his own long and productive career, Eckardt proudly called himself a disciple of the Niebuhrs.

The systemic murder of 6 million Jews in the heart of Christian Europe between 1933 and 1945 stunned Eckardt. The radical evil of the Holocaust forced him to aggressively challenge traditional Christian attitudes and beliefs that he believed helped create the climate for the Nazis’ genocidal war against the Jews.

Following the creation of Israel in 1948, Eckardt became one of the Jewish state’s most passionate Christian defenders. He firmly held onto these positions his entire life.

In his decades-long efforts as professor, author, and activist, Eckardt had a significant impact on several generations of students. And always at Eckardt’s side was his beloved wife, Alice, who was also a religion studies professor at Lehigh.

Today, countless Christian pastors, teachers, and writers throughout the world are Eckardt’s spiritual children. They reflect his core beliefs that Christians must refrain from all attempts to convert Jews to Christianity, and that it is the religious duty of Christians to support a strong and secure Israel.

Of course, Eckardt’s beliefs have not been embraced by all Christians, and his strongly articulated views did not always win him friends, even within his own denomination, the United Methodist Church.

But his Christianity was never limited to Sunday mornings: Eckardt’s religious beliefs compelled him to take public stands on many controversial issues.

His powerful attack on all forms of Christian anti-Semitism was a life-long commitment, and despite continuing professional and personal criticism from some Christian leaders, Eckardt never retreated from these basic positions. His many books and articles reflect his unshakable resolve to build a new, constructive Christian relationship with the Jewish people.

My first encounter with Eckardt came in June 1967 when Israel’s existence was threatened by its Arab neighbors. Few Christian leaders spoke out to support the fledgling Jewish state in those frightening days preceding the Six-Day War.

But Eckardt was one who immediately perceived that Israeli Jews were in grave physical danger and that Christians had a moral duty to prevent the possible destruction of Israel. After the war, Eckardt intensified his efforts on behalf of Israel.

The titles of several of Eckardt’s books reveal his carefully thought out positions.”Elder and Younger Brothers”describes the Jewish roots of Christianity and the dangers of religious anti-Semitism.”Encounter with Israel”is an eloquent defense of Christian responsibility for the survival of the modern Jewish state. And”Jews and Christians: The Contemporary Meeting,”offers a vision of relations between the two faith communities.

Eckardt and I participated in many interreligious conferences over the years and I have long admired this brilliant theologian with an infectious laugh and a lively sense of humor.

If relations between Christians and Jews are better now than they were 50 years ago, and I strongly believe they are, much of the credit must go to A. Roy Eckardt.

MJP END RUDIN